In the advertising business, it is a current practice to target individuals and groups of individuals for specific advertisements. It is important in the advertising business to know something about the individual to whom the advertisements are being sent. Demographic information is commonly used to target groups or individuals by focusing on common characteristics. Characteristics which are generally focused on include geographical areas, income, gender and age, current purchasing patterns and habits, etc.
While the name and address of the individual to whom the advertisement is being sent is usually known, it has been heretofore difficult to determine which individuals have responded to the advertisements, such as one who redeems a coupon to make a purchase.
Coupons, as currently printed, may include a bar code or some other coding identifying the product, and possibly the sales campaigns. But it has not been practical because of the space required by bar codes or other optically readable coding to print a separate code on each coupon identifying the individual household or addressee to which the advertisement and coupon is sent.
Those knowledgeable in this field will appreciate that there is a need for a service or merchandise coupon advertisement coding system which allows advertisers to uniquely identify those individual customers who respond to their advertisements.
In addition, in many instances it is impractical to place a code on coupon pieces, where for example, many and/or different multiple advertising pieces are contained in a common packet to be sent to an individual addressee, or where the advertising and coupon pieces are signature inserts in a publication to be forwarded to a particular addressee or household.